Rian Johnson Reveals His Approach to Creating a New Star Wars Trilogy

While it will be several years before we see any of them, Rian Johnson is already working on a mysterious trilogy of Star Warsfilms set apart from the main saga that will conclude with this Christmas’ Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. That means it’ll also be several years before we hear any kind of concrete details about the movies’ plots. But Observer at least got Johnson talking about how he plans to approach the creation of his trilogy.

As part of an interview on Johnson’s upcoming murder mystery Knives Out, they diverted the conversation to Star Wars. Here’s how Johnson described the fun and challenge of making an all-new Star Wars trilogy after The Last Jedi:

We’re doing something that steps beyond the legacy characters. What does that look like? To me, the blue sky element of it is what was most striking about it. I know the way that I’m coming at it and what’s fun about it for everyone in George Lucas’ films is figuring out, ‘What’s the next step?’

Johnson says his task is figuring out “what the essence of Star Wars is” and “what that will look like moving forward.” After The Last Jedi, we are really curious what he decides that is. In the meantime, Knives Out opens in theaters on November 27.